All’ Artista - International Prize

Roma, 15 December 2017

Interview by Dott. Salvatore Russo Art Critic / Historian

Dott. Salvatore Russo : By now, Santina Semadar Panetta is a worldwide well-known artist. In which way you got close to the world of art? Which artists did inspire you?

Semadar : The eclosion of my enthusiasm before the quintessence of the evolutionary aesthetics of expression goes back to my early childhood, around the age of six in elementary school in Italy. I always manifested a passion and desire for the arts, but my artistic path took a turning point that changed my life right after the event of September, the 11 - 2001. I realized the fragility of our existence and the importance to follow our passions, and took the decision to pursue and transcend the concrete reality of my burning desire for the Arts. After a long and difficult search for a suitable fine arts program, in January 2002 at the “Académie Arts et Beaux-Arts” a Varenne Quebec Canada, under the tutelage of Sam Aberg, (professor from France, engineer, painter, poet, essayist, international art critic, writer, historian, iconographer). I undertook studies of complete program taught at the Sorbonne University, including both classical and modern art rhetoric’s of compositional aesthetics, art history as well as iconographical, semiotic and philosophical concepts, comparative art criticism, covering various movements in paintings. Although I graduated in 2006, with Great Honors and Particular Distinction, I continue to study art philosophy at the doctorate level. I feel privileged to have understood the importance of the arts, and its philosophical mission in the human existence, and honored to have had studied the language and alphabet left by great masters over the course of five thousand years of art history. My datum points are: Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Monet, Chagall, Signac, Seurat, Juan Gris, Salvador Dali, Piet Mondrian, and many others.

Dott. Salvatore Russo : Your art is called “neo-pointillism”. What associate you to the great masters of French pointillism as Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Henri-Edmond Cross and Charles Angrand?

Semadar : It is obvious that I have studied the pointillist Master’s formula, much like Seurat, Signac, Monet, Van Gog, Pissarro and other Masters of the Impressionism and Pointillism movements did in their own time and manner, I transcend in the same technique to create the works, by juxtaposing a myriad of fragmented dots that blend together to achieve an optical image, and to express the core of the creations, that evolves in the eternal search of the divine existence and the ephemeral of time. The techniques and rhetoric’s developed by the great Masters, are an essential apparatus permitting to express a contemporary reality. With the industrial evolution of the 19th century time in no longer the same, the fusion of the temporal and the presentism, is an absolute Present, total and complete. In the artworks, the notion of fugacity of the present is embedded in the perissological sequences of the chromatic harmonies. The fragmentation is a parameter of the subdivision of the permanent temporal fixed in the philosophy of the Impressionism and of the Pointillism movements. The goal of the symbiotic fusion of the two dimensions is binarity. It is the fusion of the Divine Soul and the Human Souls, and by this cause we understand that we are a Symbiosis of God, pushed into a fusion of a transcendent consciousness of a monotheist, polytheist or pantheist dimension.

Dott. Salvatore Russo :

How much is the drawing important for you? works? Can you talk about the different stepsyou follow to create your paintings?

Semadar : The inspiration of my creations materializes while studying literary works and essays of great philosophers, such as Gaston Bachelard, Jean Paul Sartre, Pierre -Joseph Proudhon, Martin Heidegger and many other great immortals. Each artwork is conceptually etched in my mind up to the very last dot. It emerges in the chaos of ideas, shapes, forms, emotions, spontaneity, fused with the exaltation of the polychromy of synthesis, and the rhetoric of the movement. The complexity is rooted in the reflection and in the conception of the thesis and its mission. Some of my artwork was cogitated for several years. My preoccupations for time, existence and for the ephemerity of the cosmic creation, is a recurrent linear thesis that I have represented in the Collections of “Semadar Post-Symbolism” and in the “Geometric Abstraction”, before transcending the alphabet of the Neo-Pointillism. The drawing, at times very rudimentary, becomes a reference connecting to the mental image. It takes place after the conceptual process is completed. The lay out of the chosen chromatic harmonies on the drawings one of the final steps, and the linkage that transposes on a sketchpad and then on the canvas, the image of the work cerebrally created. Ultimately, the works thousands of small dots in oil, applied wet on wet, emerge linking together all-cerebral activity of the creation.

Dott. Salvatore Russo :

Your attention and pictorial research, are focused on color. What does the color represents for you?

Semadar : Primarily what set my work apart from the earlier Pointillist or their peers in the Impressionist movements the unique application of the polychromy of synthesis. I transcend by employing sequences of harmonies that my predecessors Impressionists and Pointillists, might not have necessarily chosen. It is in the conceptualism of the thesis that my artwork emerges by the chosen chromatics, the interactions of the simultaneous contrasts become a protagonist element manifested in all my creations. In my works, the polychromy of synthesis is conceptual, it demands a predominant chromatic that is generates by the thesis; therefore, becoming the quintessential idea of the composition, bringing forth a philosophical- metaphysical dimension on the eschatology, and teleology of the living substance. It is a reality which constitutes itself in time of the colored field, and in the wheel of the transcending space, flowing with movement in a luminous impression that becomes the tangible outburst of the work’s poetry. (The polychromy of synthesis is the thesis, synthesis and antithesis of chromatic variation. It is a summary of all diverse harmonies in interactions of the simultaneous contrasts. It is favorable in all form of modern art, it is attributed only for modern art starting from the Impressionism mouvement). References: M.E. Chevreul 1839 “ De la Loi Du Contrasts Simultanée” Gage J. “Color and Culture, practice and meaning from Antiquity to Abstraction” London 1993. Tucker M. “The structure of Color”, New York 1971.

Dott. Salvatore Russo :

Contemporary art is increasingly challenging. what do you think about it? Do you think art needs to be protected by its enemies preserving masters of past teachings?

Semadar : The meaning of expression” ART” has changed several times over the course of the centuries, and at times it seems that everything is accepted, and decadence has taken over the art world. Unfortunately, many artists are set for material gain, fortune, and fame, by producing mass provocative art, stripped of content, language and meaning, professing that there is no need for rhetoric’s, because it would impede their creativity. The reality is that to create the future, knowledge of the past is essential; the artist incarnates all studies and evolves with every creation. The rhetoric’s are introductions of intellectual order. In the chaos of the emotions and its intellectual push, the emotions or sensations are no longer chaotic, but become a structural language in the wheel of the esthetics that comes alive on the canvas, in an iconographical expression. I believe that art is an essential part of our existence; it is vital that the art language and the eloquent alphabets are preciously protected, preserved and passed on to future artists. The movement and style are indicative of the artist and the culture at large; it refers to the formal qualities and visual characteristics. It is a reflection and the echo of society. Great Masters have left a rich heritage over the course of the past five thousand years that is still used today for many creations and inventions of our time. Over the centuries, true talented and dedicated artists searched the cultural diversity of the visual arts, and transcended the different movements.

Dott. Salvatore Russo :

You studied a lot, and for this reason your artworks have a strong cultural and philosophical content, how important is the study in the career of an artist?

Semadar : There is so much more to learn, after years of studies, I realize that my knowledge is incomplete. I have desire to be an eternal scholar! I was fortunate that my professor Master Sam Aberg recognized my talent and transmitted not only the rhetoric’s of art movements, but art philosophy as well. His rigorous and demanding method of teaching, which he applied in my regard, represented a great challenge. In the classroom our relationships became an intellectual game, where knowledge, philosophical studies,and creation, were always challenged, and neither one of us wanted to lose. Today I impose the same intellectual challenge in the creation of each work and its philosophical message. The four years I spent at the Academy, were influential in forming the artist that I am today. Mr. Aberg teachings and critics, have giving me the tools needed to create artworks and continue in the traditions long awaited by my predecessors, I support his mission in preserving the teachings, rhetoric’s and language of the great Masters. I express my gratitude for his teaching’s, by saying once again: “Merci M. Aberg pour avoir étudie pour moi!”

Dott. Salvatore Russo :

You have exhibited your artworks all over the world. Is there a place in which you didn’t, and where would you like to exhibit?

Semadar : I am privileged and humbled, that my artwork is selected by the International Critics and Art Committees, to partake in major Art Manifestations Through out the world, but what is important in the choice of location, is not the city, but the Organizer’s reputation, the Critics and that Art taken is seriously!

Dott. Salvatore Russo :

Santina Semadar Panetta has Italian origins, What do you miss of Italy?

Semadar : I am proud of my Italian origins, without outshining the love for Québec Canada, my country and my home! I did not live long enough in Italy to know what I would miss, but I can surely say, that you can leave Italy, but Italy never leaves you! Fortunately, I have been exhibiting in Italy for the past 5 years, this has giving me the opportunity to get to know Italia, in all the splendor and beauty. Finally, I have experienced a sense of belonging and familiarity to this great Nations, and to the great warm and hospitable People. The sound of the Italian music and Operas, studies of iconographic books, especially Cesare Ripa, and the constant referral to Italian great Masters, are part of the daily routine. It helps to keep alive the memories of my roots, and the affiliation to a Nation much loved by my Parents, and cherish by my heart and soul!

Dott. Salvatore Russo : Your style changed over time; from geometric paintings to your “neo – pointillism”. Can you explain your artistic evolution?

Semadar : The proficient teachings, I received at the Academy plays an important role in the creation of the Neo-Pointillism movement. It is the extensive knowledge e and studies of the rhetoric’s and alphabets of the different movements, from the Classical, to Realism, Realism Subjective, Realism Evolutive, Impressionism Naturalist, Evolutive and Lyric, Cubism, Fauvism, and Geometric Abstraction, that permitted the evolution and the creation of the Neo-Pointillism. The works of my Geometric Abstraction collection are consequential of all evolutions of the arts in all-different ismes, permitting the form of expression non-figurative, to elaborate on an esthetico-pictorial plan. The major compositional binarism expressed on a conceptual surface, where the intangible is the sum of Ontological ideations, is the important step to the evolution and to the creation of the Neo-pointillism stylist approach. Consistently conveying the current and the timeless in nature’s eternal cycle. After a long reflections and experimentation, like my predecessors, I embraced the Impressionism and Pointillism movements, transcending the existing rhetoric’s to a level, where a linear purity and sobriety are manifested, blended in the rhythm and sensibility of triumphal expression. The refined poetics of the chosen chromatics are the closest representation of time in his perpetual movement, fundamental to the expression of the Neo-Pointillism. It is an umbilical linkage to the passing time and transitions from the Impressionism movement to the Pointillism leading up to the Neo-Pointillism. The intellectual and emotional energy emerges in the vibrations of a chromatically subliminal euphoria.